The Principles of Human Knowledge

Transcription

1

2

3

4 The Principles of Human Knowledge George Berkeley Copyright All rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis.... indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. First launched: July 2004 Last amended: November 2007 Contents Introduction 1 Sections Sections Sections

5 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 Sections Anyone who surveys the objects of human knowledge will easily see that they are all ideas that are either actually imprinted on the senses or perceived by attending to one s own emotions and mental activities or formed out of ideas of the first two types, with the help of memory and imagination, by compounding or dividing or simply reproducing ideas of those other two kinds. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours with their different degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and so on; and each of these also admits of differences of quantity or degree. Smelling supplies me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And when a number of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name and thus to be thought of as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, shape and consistency having been observed to go together, they are taken to be one distinct thing, called an apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and similar perceptible things; and these can arouse the emotions of love, hate, joy, grief, and so on, depending on whether they please or displease us. 2. As well as all that endless variety of ideas, or objects of knowledge, there is also something that knows or perceives them, and acts on them in various ways such as willing, imagining, and remembering. This perceiving, active entity is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. These words don t refer to any one of my ideas, but rather to something entirely distinct from them, something in which they exist, or by which they are perceived. Those two are equivalent, because the existence of an idea consists in its being perceived. 3. Everyone will agree that our thoughts, emotions, and ideas of the imagination exist only in the mind. It seems to me equally obvious that the various sensations or ideas that are imprinted on our senses cannot exist except in a mind that perceives them no matter how they are blended or combined together (that is, no matter what objects they constitute). You can know this intuitively [= you can see this as immediately self-evident ] by attending to what is meant by the term exist when it is applied to perceptible things. The table that I am writing on exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I would still say that it existed, meaning that if I were in my study I would perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. Similarly, there was an odour i.e. it was smelled; there was a sound it was heard; there was a colour or shape it was seen or felt. This is all that I can understand by such expressions as these. There are those who speak of things that unlike spirits do not think and unlike ideas exist whether or not they are perceived; but that seems to be perfectly unintelligible. For unthinking things, to exist is to be perceived; so they couldn t possibly exist out of the minds or thinking things that perceive them. 4. It is indeed widely believed that all perceptible objects houses, mountains, rivers, and so on really exist independently of being perceived by the understanding. But however widely and confidently this belief may be held, anyone who has the courage to challenge it will if I m not mistaken see that it involves an obvious contradiction. For what are houses, mountains, rivers etc. but things we perceive by sense? And what do we perceive besides our own ideas or 11

6 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 sensations? And isn t it plainly contradictory that these, either singly or in combination, should exist unperceived? 5. If we thoroughly examine this belief in things existing independently of the mind it will, perhaps, be found to depend basically on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be a more delicate and precise strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of perceptible things from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and shapes, in a word the things we see and feel what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas, or sense impressions? And can any of these be separated, even in thought, from perception? Speaking for myself, I would find it no easier to do that than to divide a thing from itself! I don t deny that I can abstract (if indeed this is properly called abstraction) by conceiving separately objects that can exist separately, even if I have never experienced them apart from one another. I can for example imagine a human torso without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking of the rose itself. But my power of conceiving or imagining goes no further than that: it doesn t extend beyond the limits of what can actually exist or be perceived. Therefore, because I can t possibly see or feel a thing without having an actual sensation of it, I also can t possibly conceive of a perceptible thing distinct from the sensation or perception of it. 6. Some truths are so close to the mind, and so obvious, that as soon as you open your eyes you will see them. Here is an important truth of that kind: All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies that compose the mighty structure of the world, have no existence outside a mind; for them to exist is for them to be perceived or known; consequently so long as they aren t actually perceived by (i.e. don t exist in the mind of) myself or any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all or else exist in the mind of some eternal spirit; because it makes no sense and involves all the absurdity of abstraction to attribute to any such thing an existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of this, you need only to reflect and try to separate in your own thoughts the existence of a perceptible thing from its being perceived you ll find that you can t. 7. From what I have said it follows that the only substances are spirits things that perceive. Another argument for the same conclusion is the following down to the end of the section. The perceptible qualities are colour, shape, motion, smell, taste and so on, and these are ideas perceived by sense. Now it is plainly self-contradictory to suppose that an idea might exist in an unperceiving thing, for to have an idea is just the same as to perceive: so whatever has colour, shape and so on must perceive these qualities; from which it clearly follows that there can be no unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas. 8. But, you say, though the ideas don t exist outside the mind, still there may be things like them of which they are copies or resemblances, and these things may exist outside the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer that the only thing an idea can resemble is another idea; a colour or shape can t be like anything but another colour or shape. Attend a little to your own thoughts and you will find that you can t conceive of any likeness except between your ideas. Also: tell me about those supposed originals or external things of which our ideas are the pictures or representations are they perceivable or not? If they are, then they are ideas, and I have won the argument; but if you say they are not, I appeal to anyone whether it makes sense to assert that a colour 12

7 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 is like something that is invisible; that hard or soft is like something intangible; and similarly for the other qualities. 9. Some philosophers distinguish primary qualities from secondary qualities: they use the former term to stand for extension, shape, motion, rest, solidity and number; by the latter term they denote all other perceptible qualities, such as colours, sounds, tastes, and so on. Our ideas of secondary qualities don t resemble anything existing outside the mind or unperceived, they admit; but they insist that our ideas of primary qualities are patterns or images of things that exist outside the mind in an unthinking substance that they call matter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless substance in which extension, shape and motion actually exist. But I have already shown that extension, shape, and motion are quite clearly nothing but ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can t be like anything but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor things from which they are copied can exist in an unperceiving substance. So the very notion of so-called matter, or corporeal substance, clearly involves a contradiction. 10. Those who assert that shape, motion and the other primary qualities exist outside the mind in unthinking substances say in the same breath that colours, sounds, heat, cold, and other secondary qualities do not. These, they tell us, are sensations that exist in the mind alone, and depend on the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. They offer this as an undoubted truth that they can prove conclusively. Now if it is certain that (1) primary qualities are inseparably united with secondary ones, and can t be abstracted from them even in thought, it clearly follows that (2) primary qualities exist only in the mind, just as the secondary ones do. I now defend (1). Look in on yourself, and see whether you can perform a mental abstraction that enables you to conceive of a body s being extended and moving without having any other perceptible qualities. Speaking for myself, I see quite clearly that I can t form an idea of an extended, moving body unless I also give it some colour or other perceptible quality which is admitted by the philosophers I have been discussing to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, shape and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. It follows that these primary qualities must be where the secondary ones are namely in the mind and nowhere else. 11. Here s a further point about extension and motion. Large and small, and fast and slow, are generally agreed to exist only in the mind. That is because they are entirely relative: whether something is large or small, and whether it moves quickly or slowly, depends on the condition or location of the sense-organs of the perceiver. [See the end of 14 for a little light on the quick/slow part of this point.] So if there is extension outside the mind, it must be neither large nor small, and extra-mental motion must be neither fast nor slow. I conclude that there is no such extension or motion. (If you reply They do exist; they are extension in general and motion in general, that will be further evidence of how greatly the doctrine about extended, movable substances existing outside the mind depends on that strange theory of abstract ideas.).... So unthinking substances can t be extended; and that implies that they can t be solid either, because it makes no sense to suppose that something is solid but not extended. 12. Even if we grant that the other primary qualities exist outside the mind, it must be conceded that number is entirely created by the mind. This will be obvious to anyone who notices that the same thing can be assigned different numbers depending on how the mind views it. Thus, the 13

8 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 same distance is one or three or thirty-six, depending on whether the mind considers it in terms of yards, feet or inches. Number is so obviously relative and dependent on men s understanding that I find it surprising that anyone should ever have credited it with an absolute existence outside the mind. We say one book, one page, one line; all these are equally units that is, each is one something yet the book contains many pages and the page contains many lines. In each case, obviously, what we are saying there is one of is a particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind, for example, the arbitrary combination of ideas that we choose to call a book. 13. Some philosophers, I realize, hold that unity is a simple or uncompounded idea that accompanies every other idea into the mind. I don t find that I have any such idea corresponding to the word unity. I could hardly overlook it if it were there in my mind: it ought to be the most familiar to me of all my ideas, since it is said to accompany all my other ideas and to be perceived by all the ways of sensation and reflection. In short, it is an abstract idea! 14. Here is a further point. Some modern philosophers argue that certain perceptible qualities have no existence in matter or outside the mind; their arguments can be used to prove the same thing of all perceptible qualities whatsoever. They point out for instance that a body that appears cold to one hand seems warm to the other, from which they infer that heat and cold are only states of the mind and don t resemble anything in the corporeal substances that cause them. If that argument is good, then why can t we re-apply it to prove that shape and extension don t resemble any fixed and determinate qualities existing in matter, because they appear differently to the same eye in different positions, or eyes in different states in the same position? Again, they argue that sweetness isn t really in the thing that is described as sweet, because sweetness can be changed into bitterness without there being any alteration in the thing itself because the person s palate has been affected by a fever or some other harm. Is it not equally reasonable to argue that motion isn t outside the mind because a thing will appear to move more or less quickly without any change in the thing itself depending on whether the succession of ideas in the observer s mind is slow or fast? 15. In short, the arguments that are thought to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind have as much force to prove the same thing of extension, shape and motion. Really, though, these arguments don t prove that there is no extension or colour in an outward object, but only that our senses don t tell us what an object s true extension or colour is. My own previous arguments do better: they clearly show it to be impossible that any colour or extension or other perceptible quality should exist in an unthinking thing outside the mind, or indeed that there should be any such thing as an object outside the mind. 16. But let us examine the usual opinion a little further. It is said that extension is a quality of matter, and that matter is the substratum that supports it. Please explain to me what is meant by matter s supporting extension. You reply: I have no idea of matter; so I can t explain it. I answer: Even if you have no positive meaning for matter that is, have no idea of what matter is like in itself you must at least have a relative idea of it, so that you know how matter relates to qualities, and what it means to say that it supports them. If you don t even know that, you have no meaning at all in what you are saying. Explain support, then! Obviously it cannot be meant here in its usual or literal sense, as when we say that pillars support a building: in what sense, then, 14

9 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 are we to understand it? 17. When we attend to what the most carefully precise philosophers say they mean by material substance, we find them admitting that the only meaning they can give to those sounds is the idea of being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting qualities. The general idea of being seems to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all. As for its supporting qualities : since this cannot be understood in the ordinary sense of those words (as I have just pointed out), it must be taken in some other sense; but we aren t told what that other sense is. I am sure, therefore, that there is no clear meaning in either of the two parts or strands that are supposed to make up the meaning of the words material substance. Anyway, why should we trouble ourselves any further in discussing this material substratum or support of shape and motion and other perceptible qualities? Whatever we make of its details the notions of being in general, and of support it is clearly being said that shape and motion and the rest exist outside the mind. Isn t this a direct contradiction, and altogether inconceivable? 18. Suppose it were possible for solid, figured, movable substances to exist outside the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies how could we possibly know that there are any such things? We must know it either by sense or by reason. Our senses give us knowledge only of our sensations ideas things that are immediately perceived by sense call them what you will! They don t inform us that outside the mind (that is, unperceived) there exist things that resemble the item s that are perceived. The materialists themselves admit this. So if we are to have any knowledge of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But what reasons can lead us from the ideas that we perceive to a belief in the existence of bodies outside the mind? The supporters of matter themselves don t claim that there is any necessary connection between material things and our ideas. We could have all the ideas that we now have without there being any bodies existing outside us that resemble them; everyone admits this, and what happens in dreams, hallucinations and so on puts it beyond dispute. Evidently, then, we aren t compelled to suppose that there are external bodies as causes of our ideas. Those ideas are sometimes, so they could be always, produced without help from bodies yet falling into the patterns that they do in fact exhibit. 19. Even though external bodies aren t absolutely needed to explain our sensations, you might think, the course of our experience is easier to explain on the supposition of external bodies than it is without that supposition. So it is at least probable there are bodies that cause our minds to have ideas of them. But this is not tenable either. The materialists admit that they cannot understand how body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible for a body to imprint any idea in a mind; and that is tantamount to admitting that they don t know how our ideas are produced. So the production of ideas or sensations in our minds can t be a reason for supposing the existence of matter or corporeal substances, because it admittedly remains a mystery with or without that supposition. So even if it were possible for bodies to exist outside the mind, the belief that they actually do so must be a very shaky one; since it involves supposing, without any reason at all, that God has created countless things that are entirely useless and serve no purpose. 20. In short, if there were external bodies, we couldn t possibly come to know this; and if there weren t, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we 15

10 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 have now. No-one can deny the following to be possible: A thinking being might, without the help of external bodies, be affected with the same series of sensations or ideas that you have, imprinted in the same order and with similar vividness in his mind. If that happened, wouldn t that thinking being have all the reason to believe There are corporeal substances that are represented by my ideas and cause them in my mind that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of course he would; and that consideration is enough, all on its own, to make any reasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think he has for the existence of bodies outside the mind. 21. If, even after what has been said, more arguments were needed against the existence of matter, I could cite many errors and difficulties (not to mention impieties) that have sprung from that doctrine. It has led to countless controversies and disputes in philosophy, and many even more important ones in religion. But I shan t go into the details of them here, because I think arguments about materialism s bad consequences are unnecessary for confirming what has, I think, been well enough proved a priori regarding its intrinsic defects, and the lack of good reasons to support it. [The word materialism doesn t occur in the Principles. It is used in this version, in editorial notes and interventions, with the meaning that Berkeley gives it in other works, naming the doctrine that there is such a thing as mind-independent matter, not the stronger doctrine that there is nothing but matter.] 22. I am afraid I have given you cause to think me needlessly long-winded in handling this subject. For what is the point of hammering away at something that can be proved in a line or two, convincing anyone who is capable of the least reflection? Look into your own thoughts, and try to conceive it possible for a sound or shape or motion or colour to exist outside the mind, or unperceived. Can you do it? This simple thought-experiment may make you see that what you have been defending is a downright contradiction. I am willing to stake my whole position on this: if you can so much as conceive it possible for one extended movable substance or in general for any one idea or anything like an idea to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall cheerfully give up my opposition to matter; and as for all that great apparatus of external bodies that you argue for, I shall admit its existence, even though you cannot either give me any reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to it when it is supposed to exist. I repeat: the bare possibility of your being right will count as an argument that you are right. 23. But, you say, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine trees in a park, for instance, or books on a shelf, with nobody there to perceive them. I reply that this is indeed easy to imagine; but let us look into what happens when you imagine it. You form in your mind certain ideas that you call books and trees, and at the same time you omit to form the idea of anyone who might perceive them. But while you are doing this, you perceive or think of them! So your thought- experiment misses the point; it shows only that you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind; but it doesn t show that you can conceive it possible for the objects of your thought to exist outside the mind. To show that, you would have to conceive them existing unconceived or unthought-of, which is an obvious contradiction. However hard we try to conceive the existence of external bodies, all we achieve is to contemplate our own ideas. The mind is misled into thinking that it can and does conceive bodies existing outside the mind or unthought-of because it pays no attention to itself, and so doesn t notice that it contains or thinks of the things that it conceives. Think about it a little and you will see that what I am saying is plainly true; 16

11 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 there is really no need for any of the other disproofs of the existence of material substance. 24. It takes very little enquiry into our own thoughts to know for sure whether we can understand what is meant by the absolute existence of perceptible objects outside the mind. To me it is clear that those words mark out either a direct contradiction or else nothing at all. To convince you of this, I know no easier or fairer way than to urge you to attend calmly to your own thoughts: if that attention reveals to you the emptiness or inconsistency of those words, that is surely all you need to be convinced. So that is what I insist on: the phrase the absolute existence of unthinking things has either no meaning or a self-contradictory one. This is what I repeat and teach, and urge you to think about carefully. 25. All our ideas sensations, things we perceive, call them what you will are visibly inactive; there is no power or agency in them. One idea or object of thought, therefore, cannot produce or affect another. To be convinced of this we need only to attend to our ideas. They are wholly contained within the mind, so whatever is in them must be perceived. Now, if you attend to your ideas, whether of sense or reflection, you will not perceive any power or activity in them; so there is no power or activity in them. Think about it a little and you ll realize that passiveness and inertness are of the essence of an idea, so that an idea can t do anything or be the cause (strictly speaking) of anything; nor can it resemble anything that is active, as is evident from 8. From this it clearly follows that extension, shape and motion can t be the cause of our sensations. So it must be false to say that our sensations result from powers that things have because of the arrangement, number, motion, and size of the corpuscles in them. 26. We perceive a continual stream of ideas: new ones appear, others are changed or totally disappear. These ideas must have a cause something they depend on, something that produces and changes them. It is clear from 25 that this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas, because that section shows that ideas are inactive, i.e. have no causal powers; and thus qualities have no powers either, because qualities are ideas. So the cause must be a substance, because reality consists of nothing but substances and their qualities. It cannot be a corporeal or material substance, because I have shown that there is no such thing. We must therefore conclude that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal active substance a spirit. 27. A spirit is an active being. It is simple, in the sense that it doesn t have parts. When thought of as something that perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and when thought of as producing ideas or doing things with them, it is called the will. But understanding and will are different powers that a spirit has; they aren t parts of it. It follows that no-one can form an idea of a soul or spirit. We have seen in 25 that all ideas are passive and inert, and therefore no idea can represent an active thing, which is what a spirit is, because no idea can resemble an active thing. If you think about it a little, you ll see clearly that it is absolutely impossible to have an idea that is like an active cause of the change of ideas. The nature of spirit (i.e. that which acts) is such that it cannot itself be perceived; all we can do is to perceive the effects it produces. To perceive a spirit would be to have an idea of it, that is, an idea that resembles it; and I have shown that no idea can resemble a spirit because ideas are passive and spirits active. If you think I may be wrong about this, you should look in on yourself and try to form the idea of a power or of an active being, that is, a thing that has power. To do this, you need to have ideas of two principal powers called will and understanding, these 17

12 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 ideas being distinct from each other and from a third idea of substance or being in general, which is called soul or spirit ; and you must also have a relative notion of spirit s supporting or being the subject of those two powers. Some people say that they have all that; but it seems to me that the words will and spirit don t stand for distinct ideas, or indeed for any idea at all, but for something very different from ideas. Because this something is an agent, it cannot resemble or be represented by any idea whatsoever. Though it must be admitted that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and operations of the mind such as willing, loving and hating, in that we understand the meanings of those words. 28. I find I can arouse ideas in my mind at will, and vary and shift the mental scene whenever I want to. I need only to will, and straight away this or that idea arises in my mind; and by willing again I can obliterate it and bring on another. It is because the mind makes and unmakes ideas in this way that it can properly be called active. It certainly is active; we know this from experience. But anyone who talks of unthinking agents or of arousing ideas without the use of volition is merely letting himself be led astray by words. 29. Whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, however, I find that the ideas I get through my senses don t depend on my will in the same way. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it isn t in my power to choose whether or not I shall see anything, or to choose what particular objects I shall see; and the same holds for hearing and the other senses. My will is not responsible for the ideas that come to me through any of my senses. So there must be some other will some other spirit that produces them. 30. The ideas of sense are stronger, livelier, and clearer than those of the imagination; and they are also steady, orderly and coherent. Ideas that people bring into their own minds at will are often random and jumbled, but the ideas of sense aren t like that: they come in a regular series, and are inter-related in admirable ways that show us the wisdom and benevolence of the series author. The phrase the laws of nature names the set rules or established methods whereby the mind we depend on that is, God arouses in us the ideas of sense. We learn what they are by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are ordinarily accompanied or followed by such and such others. 31. This gives us a sort of foresight that enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life. Without this we would always be at a loss: we couldn t know how to do anything to bring ourselves pleasure or spare ourselves pain. That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the spring is the way to get a harvest in the fall, and in general that such and such means are the way to achieve such and such ends we know all this not by discovering any necessary connection between our ideas but only by observing the settled laws of nature. Without them we would be utterly uncertain and confused, and a grown man would have no more idea than a new-born infant does of how to manage himself in the affairs of life. 32. This consistent, uniform working obviously displays the goodness and wisdom of God, the governing spirit whose will constitutes the laws of nature. And yet, far from leading our thoughts towards him, it sends them away from him in a wandering search for second causes that is, for causes that come between God and the effects we want to explain. For when we perceive that certain ideas of sense are constantly followed by other ideas, and we know that this isn t our doing, we immediately attribute power and agency to the ideas themselves, and make one the cause of another than which nothing can be more absurd and 18

13 Principles George Berkeley 1 50 unintelligible. Thus, for example, having observed that when we perceive by sight a certain round luminous figure, we at the same time perceive by touch the idea or sensation called heat, we infer that the sun causes heat. Similarly, when we perceive that a collision of bodies is accompanied by sound, we are inclined to think the latter an effect of the former. 33. The (1) ideas imprinted on the senses by the author of nature are called real things ; and those (2) that are caused by the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly called ideas or images of things that they copy and represent. But our (1) sensations, however vivid and distinct they may be, are nevertheless ideas; that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as (2) the ideas that mind itself makes. The (1) ideas of sense are agreed to have more reality in them i.e. to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than ideas made by the mind; but this doesn t show that they exist outside the mind. They are also less dependent on the spirit or thinking substance that perceives them, for they are caused by the will of another and more powerful spirit, namely God ; but still they are ideas, and certainly no idea whether faint or strong can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it. 34. Before we move on, I have to spend some time in answering objections that are likely to be made against the principles I have laid down. I shall answer twelve of them, ending in 72; and further objections will occupy My answer to the first of the twelve will run to the end of 40. If fast-thinking readers find me too long-winded about this, I hope they will pardon me. My excuse is that people aren t all equally quick in getting a grasp on topics such as this, and I want to be understood by everyone. First, then, this will be objected: By your principles everything real and substantial in nature is banished out of the world, and replaced by a chimerical [= unreal or imaginary ] system of ideas. All things that exist do so only in the mind according to you, that is, they are purely notional. Then what becomes of the sun, moon, and stars? What must we think of houses, rivers, mountains, trees, stones even of our own bodies, for that matter? Are all these mere illusions, creatures of the imagination? To all this and any other objections of the same sort I answer that the principles I have laid down don t deprive us of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or in any way conceive or understand remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a real world, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force. This is evident from and 33, where I have shown what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras or ideas made by us; but by that account real things and chimeras both exist in the mind, and in that sense are alike in being ideas. 35. I don t argue against the existence of any one thing that we can take in, either by sense or reflection. I don t in the least question that the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist. The only thing whose existence I deny is what philosophers call matter or corporeal substance. And in denying this I do no harm to the rest of mankind that is, to people other than philosophers because they will never miss it. The atheist indeed will lose the rhetorical help he gets from an empty name, matter, which he uses to support his impiety; and the philosophers may find that they have lost a great opportunity for word-spinning and disputation. 19

14 Principles George Berkeley If you think that this detracts from the existence or reality of things, you are very far from understanding what I have said in the plainest way I could think of. Here it is again, in brief outline. There are spiritual substances, minds, or human souls, which cause ideas in themselves through acts of the will, doing this as they please; but these ideas are faint, weak, and unsteady as compared with other ideas that minds perceive by sense. The latter ideas, being impressed on minds according to certain rules or laws of nature tell us that they are the effects of a mind that is stronger and wiser than human spirits. The latter are said to have more reality in them than the former: by which is meant that they are more forceful, orderly, and distinct, and that they aren t fictions of the mind that perceives them. In this sense, the sun that I see by day is the real sun, and what I imagine by night is the idea of the former. In the sense I am here giving to reality, it is evident that every plant, star, rock, and in general each part of the system of the world, is as much a real thing by my principles as by any others. Whether you mean by reality anything different from what I do, I beg you to look into your own thoughts and see. 37. You will want to object: At least it is true that you take away all corporeal substances. I answer that if the word substance is taken in the ordinary everyday sense standing for a combination of perceptible qualities such as extension, solidity, weight, etc. I cannot be accused of taking substance away. But if substance is taken in a philosophic sense standing for the support of qualities outside the mind then indeed I agree that I take it away, if one may be said to take away something that never had any existence, not even in the imagination. 38. But, you say, it sounds weird to say that we eat and drink ideas, and are clothed with them. So it does, because the word idea isn t used in ordinary talk to signify the combinations of perceptible qualities that are called things; and any expression that differs from the familiar use of language is bound to seem weird and ridiculous. But this doesn t concern the truth of the proposition, which in other words merely says that we are fed and clothed with things that we perceive immediately by our senses. The hardness or softness, the colour, taste, warmth, shape and such like qualities, which combine to constitute the various sorts of food and clothing, have been shown to exist only in the mind that perceives them; and this is all I mean by calling them ideas ; which word, if it was as ordinarily used as thing, would sound no weirder or more ridiculous than thing does in the statement that we eat and drink things and are clothed with them. My concern isn t with the propriety of words but with the truth of my doctrine. So if you will agree with me that what we eat, drink, and clothe ourselves with are immediate objects of sense that cannot exist unperceived or outside the mind, I will readily agree with you that it is more proper more in line with ordinary speech to call them things rather than ideas. 39. Why do I employ the word idea, rather than following ordinary speech and calling them things? For two reasons: first, because the term thing, unlike idea, is generally supposed to stand for something existing outside the mind; and secondly, because thing has a broader meaning than idea, because it applies to spirits, or thinking things, as well as to ideas. Since the objects of sense exist only in the mind, and also are unthinking and inactive which spirits are not, I choose to mark them by the word idea, which implies those properties. 40. You may want to say: Say what you like, I will still believe my senses, and will never allow any arguments, 20

15 Principles George Berkeley The opinion that spirits are to be known in the way that ideas and sensations are known has given rise to many absurd doctrines and much scepticism about the nature of the soul. It has probably led some people to doubt whether they had a soul, as distinct from their body, since they couldn t find that they had an idea of it. In fact, the mere meanings of the words are enough to refute the proposition that an idea (meaning: something inactive, whose existence consists in being perceived) could be the image or likeness of a spirit (meaning: an active thing that exists independently of being perceived) Although an idea cannot resemble a spirit in its thinking, acting or existing independently, you may say, it may resemble it in other ways. An idea or image of a thing needn t be like it in every respect. I answer that if the idea doesn t resemble the thing in the ways I have mentioned, it can t possibly represent it in any other respect. If you leave out the power of willing, thinking and perceiving ideas, nothing remains in respect of which an idea could resemble a spirit. All we mean by the word spirit is that which thinks, wills, and perceives ; this is the whole meaning of that term. So if none of those powers can be represented in an idea, there can be no idea at all of a spirit You may object that if no idea is signified by the terms soul, spirit and substance, they must be meaningless. I answer that those words do mean or signify a real thing, which is neither an idea nor like an idea, but is a thing that perceives ideas, and wills, and reasons about them. I am myself a thing of that kind: what I refer to by the word I is the same as what is meant by soul or spiritual substance. You may object: Why quarrel over a word? The immediate significations of other general words are by common consent called ideas, so there s no reason not to give that same label to what is signified by the general term spirit or soul. To that I reply that the unthinking objects of the mind all have in common that they are entirely passive and exist only in being perceived; whereas a soul or spirit is an active being whose existence consists not in being perceived but in perceiving ideas and in thinking. These are two utterly, profoundly different categories of thing. So we need to maintain the distinction between spirit and idea, so as to avoid ambiguity and running together things that are utterly opposite and unlike one another. See In a broad sense, indeed, we can be said to have an idea or rather a notion of spirit that is, we understand the meaning of the word spirit, otherwise we couldn t use it in affirming or denying things of spirits. Furthermore, we suppose that our own ideas resemble ideas in the minds of others; for example, my ideas of blueness or heat resemble the ideas of blueness and heat that other people have. In that sense our own soul is the image or idea of the souls of others because it resembles them. And so we conceive ideas in the minds of other spirits by means of our own ideas, and we know other spirits by means of our own soul Those who assert that the soul is naturally immortal mustn t be thought to mean that nothing, not even the infinite power of the creator who first brought it into existence, could possibly annihilate the soul. Their view is merely that the soul is not at risk of being broken or pulled apart in accordance with the ordinary laws of nature or motion. Some people think the soul of man to be only a thin living flame, or a gaseous system of animal spirits ; and on that view it is as easily destructible as the body, because nothing is more easily dissipated than flame or gas, which couldn t 50

16 Principles George Berkeley possibly survive the ruin of the body that houses it. This view that the soul is naturally perishable has been eagerly embraced and cherished by the worst people, who see it as the strongest antidote to virtue and religion. But I have shown clearly that bodies, no matter what their structure or materials, including flames and animal spirits, are merely passive ideas in the mind. The mind itself is more unlike them than light is unlike darkness. I have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended, and it is therefore incapable of being destroyed by natural processes. It can t fall apart because it has no parts. What we call the course of nature is a series of motions, changes, decays and disintegrations that we see natural bodies undergoing constantly; none of this can possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance: such a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature, which is to say that the human soul is naturally immortal What I have said presumably makes it clear that our souls cannot be known in the way that senseless, inactive objects are known; that is, we can t know them by having ideas of them. We can say of both spirits and ideas that they exist, are known and so on, but these words don t mean that spirits have anything in common with ideas. They aren t alike in any respect; and we have no more chance of increasing our powers so that we can know a spirit as we do a triangle than we have of becoming able to see a sound! I emphasize this because I think it may help us to clear up several important questions and prevent some dangerous errors about the nature of the soul. Although it isn t strictly right to say that we have an idea of an active being or of an action, we can be said to have a notion of them. I have some knowledge or notion of my mind and of how it acts with regard to ideas, in that I know or understand what is meant by those words. When I know something, I have some notion of it. The terms idea and notion could be treated as interchangeable with one another, if that is what people want; but we speak more clearly and properly when we distinguish very different things by giving them different names. Incidentally, because relations include an act of the mind it is less strictly accurate to say that we have ideas of relations and relational properties than to say that we have notions of them. But these days the word idea is used more broadly, to cover spirits and relations and acts; and there s no point in fussing about this, because it is after all a verbal matter I should add that the doctrine of abstract ideas has had a large share in making intricate and obscure those sciences that focus on spiritual things. Men have imagined they could form abstract notions of the powers and acts of the mind, and could consider them apart from the mind or spirit itself, and also apart from their respective objects and effects. In this way a great many dark and indeterminate words, presumed to stand for abstract notions, have been introduced into metaphysics and morality, and from these have grown countless distractions and disputes amongst the learned But nothing seems to have contributed more to pulling men into controversies and mistakes about the nature and operations of the mind than their custom of speaking of them in terms borrowed from perceptible ideas. The will is termed the motion of the soul; which encourages people to liken the mind of man to a ball in motion, pushed and determined by the objects of sense as necessarily as the ball is by the stroke of a racket. This creates endless worries and dangerous errors in morality. All this could be cleared up, and the truth be made to appear plain, uniform, and consistent, if philosophers would only look into themselves 51

17 Principles George Berkeley and think hard about what they mean by what they say From what I have said, it is clear that the only way we can know that there are other spirits is through what they do that is, the ideas they arouse in us. Some of the changes and recombinations that I perceive among my ideas inform me there are certain particular agents like myself, which accompany those ideas and concur in [= agree to, go along with ] their production in my mind. Whereas I know about my own ideas immediately, my knowledge of other spirits is not immediate; it depends on the intervention of ideas that I take to be effects or signs of agents (spirits) other than myself Those other agents, however, are not all human. Though we are sometimes convinced that human agents are involved in producing some events. everyone can see that the things we call the works of nature that is, the great majority of the ideas or sensations that we perceive are not produced by human wills and don t depend on them in any way. So there must be some other spirit that causes them, since it is contradictory that they should exist by themselves. (See 29.) What is the nature of that other spirit? Here is how we can find out. We can attend carefully to how regular, orderly and inter-connected natural things are; to the surprising magnificence, beauty and perfection of the larger parts of the creation, and the delicately intricate way in which its smaller parts are arranged; to how harmoniously all the parts fit together; and, above all this being something that we don t view with the astonishment it deserves to the laws of pain and pleasure, and the instincts (that is, the natural inclinations, appetites, and emotions) of animals. If while considering all this we also attend to the nature of the attributes one, eternal, infinitely wise, good and perfect, we shall see clearly that they are attributes of that spirit I have mentioned the one who makes everything happen and gives everything its reality Clearly, then, we know God as certainly and immediately as we know any mind or spirit other than ourselves. Indeed, God s existence is far more evidently perceived than the existence of other men, because nature has infinitely more and bigger effects than those that are attributed to human agents. Indeed, the things that are done by humans are at the same time effects of nature that is, they are also done by God. Every sign of a man s existence that is, every effect produced by a man points even more strongly to the existence of that spirit who is the author of nature. Here is why. When you have an effect on me, all that you actually will to do is to move your own limbs or larynx ; that the movements you make with your body should lead to any change in the ideas in my mind depends wholly on the will of the creator. It is he alone who keeps other spirits in step with one another in such a way that they can perceive one another s existence. Yet this pure, clear light that illuminates us all, making us visible to one another, is in itself invisible The unthinking herd all seem to hold that they cannot see God. If only we could see him in the way we see a man, they say, we would believe that he exists and, as believers, obey his commands. But, unfortunately for them, we need only open our eyes to have a fuller and clearer view of the sovereign lord of all things than we have of any one of our fellow-creatures! I am not supposing that we have a direct and immediate view of God (as some think we do), or that when we see bodies we do so not directly but rather by seeing something that represents them in the essence of God ( as Malebranche thinks we do ) a doctrine that I confess to finding incomprehensible. Let me explain what I do mean. A human spirit or person isn t perceived by sense, because 52